The start date for the Unified Patent Court remains 1 June 2023. This has been confirmed to Kluwer IP Law by Johannes Karcher, acting chairman of the Administrative Committee. The decision was made by the UPC member states last week at a meeting of the Administrative Committee in Luxembourg. Due to problems with accessing the…
In two decisions rendered on February 1st, 2023, the French Supreme Court (“Cour de cassation”) overturned the decisions of the Paris Court of Appeal which had confirmed the rejections by the French PTO (“INPI”) of the supplementary protection certificate (“SPC”) applications for nivolumab and pembrolizumab. On this occasion, the Supreme Court clarified the interpretation of…
In June 2023 the European patent landscape will see one of the most dramatic changes in decades with the introduction of the Unitary Patent (UP) and the opening of Unified Patent Court (UPC). In a short series this blog will go through the main characteristics of the system and decisions that need to made to…
The industry has serious concerns about the deteriorating patent quality at the European Patent Office. The issue was discussed earlier this month between the EPO and the Industry Patent Quality Charter, an group representing major international corporations, law firms and patent offices. After their meeting, Beat Weibel, chief IP counsel, group senior vice-president at Siemens…
Nokia v Oppo [2023] EWHC 23 (Pat) In a new development in the global dispute between Nokia and Oppo that spans seven jurisdictions across Europe and Asia, Mr Justice Meade of the English Patents Court has found that smartphone manufacturer Oppo infringes valid and standard essential Nokia 4G/5G patent EP2981103 on an “allocation of preamble…
The Unified Patent Court has announced an optimized API opt-out process will be in place as of 1 March 2023, at the beginning of the sunrise period. A new set of guidelines and specifications are available on the UPC’s website for developers dedicated to the sunrise period. The revised process for opt-out via API will…
In June 2023 the European patent landscape will see one of the most dramatic changes in decades with the introduction of the Unitary Patent (UP) and the opening of Unified Patent Court (UPC). In a short series this blog will go through the main characteristics of the system and decisions that need to made to…
In two decisions rendered on January 11, 2023, the French Supreme Court (“Cour de cassation”) ruled for the third time in almost 50 years on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. As we will see, in doing so the Supreme Court seems to follow the “Hitachi” approach used at the European Patent Office in this field….
The story of the creation of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court was like the game ‘Fortunately, unfortunately’, according to Pierre Véron. The French patent litigation specialist was the founder and first president of the European Patent Lawyers Association (from 2001) and has been involved in the creation of the Unitary Patent Package…
The EPO has opened its public user consultation on the latest version of the EPC and PCT-EPO Guidelines, which will come into force on 1 March 2023. Users are invited to submit their comments in any of the EPO’s three official languages via an online form by 4 April 2023. The Guidelines for Examination in…
